Bacteria are everywhere—from our intestinal tract, to soils, rivers, and oceans. For the most part, bacteria are beneficial, acting to degrade organic waste and recycle nutrients back into the food chain. Sometimes, however, bacteria cause problems.
In order to prevent problems associated with bacteria, antibiotics are often added to an environment to suppress bacterial growth. While this treatment can be effective, the USDA has documented the emergence of antibiotic resistant bacterial strains. Since there are limited ways to treat or prevent bacterial contamination, antibiotic resistance would result in frequent problems associated with contamination such as spoilage. There is also a public health risk with the emergence of antibiotic resistance, because often the bacterial species that cause contamination are ubiquitous in the environment and inhabit the intestinal tract of vertebrate animals, including humans. These bacterial strains do cause human infections and such infections would be medically untreatable if they involve antibiotic resistant bacteria.
There is a need to develop methods to limit or eliminate bacterial contamination, are not cost prohibitive, and do not cause harm to the environment or potentially cause antibiotic resistant bacteria. Current methods are costly and may even introduce harmful antibiotic resistant bacteria to our environment. The present invention limits or eliminates bacteria growth and contamination, and provides a solution to the threats of antibiotic resistance emergence at a reasonable cost.